Butterfly Trap

During a recent trip to Vietnam, I returned to Cúc Phương National Park. I had previously visited the park two years prior with a fellow Zoologist I studied and lived with back in University. After this first trip, I still felt the forest needed further exploration and decided to dedicate a few days of our most recent trip photographing some of its inhabitants.

This time I was lucky enough to have Emma, my mother and sister with me. After a 3 hour train journey from Hanoi to Ninh Binh, an hour in a car, and a 45 minute motorbike ride, we found ourselves at the centre of the park.

We came across this abandoned, dilapidated conference hall in the centre of the rainforest.

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Unexpecting butterflies enter through open doors and smashed windows to then get trapped inside the glass prison.

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Along the glass front thousands of butterflies lie like leaves along the pavement in autumn.

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Despite how sad this scenario may have been, with the abandoned buildings and trapped butterflies, the location was remarkable. Overtime it seemed the forest was reclaiming what was once forest in the first instance.

As photographers and wildlife enthusiasts, we took the opportunity to capture the struggle and create the image below… We also saved a few lucky ones and released them back into the forest.

To see a larger version of this image, click here to go to the photo on our Flickr page.

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Thank you 😊. Agreed, it was a quite a sobering experience. It was strange to be there to witness it. I’ll tell you one thing, though, the ants were having a field day! Half of the butterflies that we thought were still alive were actually being carried away by the ants 😅. At least someone was happy!